Besides the Centre County Recycling & Refuse Authority, there are local entities that have put many zero waste practices into place: • Park Forest Elementary School has a zero waste committee, composts all lunchroom leftovers, utilizes water bottle filling stations instead of single use bottles and uses TerraCycle for hard-to-recycle items.

Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, said, "TerraCycle is thrilled to win the Green America People & Planet Green Business Award. Green America is a widely respected organization and we are proud to accept such a respected third-party validation of our work. The prize money will be utilized to help expand our free recycling fundraisers for schools and communities around the country."

Hively Avenue Preschool is competing to win a new playground through the national Colgate and Meijer Recycled Playground Challenge. The preschool is among the top 15 competitors in the program sponsored by the TerraCycle company in partnership with Colgate-Palmolive and Mejier in a contest to win a playground made completely of recycled materials. The competition aims to encourage healthy smiles and environments among school children and consumers, sponsors said.

An Eastern Carolina elementary school is in the running to win a brand new playground. Dixon Elementary School in Onslow County is now ranked fifth in the country for the TerraCycle Milestone Program. If Dixon collects 200,000 recycled juice pouches, they will win the playground.

TerraCycle announced its Recycled Playground Challenge, an initiative in partnership with Colgate-Palmolive (“Colgate”) and Meijer – to help encourage healthy smiles and environments among school children and consumers. Running through September 30, 2015, schools located throughout Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Wisconsin are eligible to compete for a new playground made completely of recycled material by joining TerraCycle’s Oral Care Brigade™ program. Through the Oral Care Brigade™, a free recycling program run by Colgate and TerraCycle, schools will earn one ‘Playground Credit’ for each shipment of empty toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and floss containers sent to TerraCycle.

TerraCycle is another company that offers Brita filter recycling. With their Brita Brigade, you can send in your filters, earn points for recycling, and use for charitable gifts, product bundles, or a payment of $0.01 per point to the non-profit organization or school of your choice. Each TerraCycle shipment earns points, and there’s no limit to how much you can send in.

TerraCycle runs a program called the Personal Care and Beauty Brigade that collects plastic personal care product bottles. Since 2011, they have collected a total of 2.8 million pieces of beauty waste! When you think about the sheer number of different bottles and tubes you have in your bathroom cabinet … are you really that surprised?

Terracycle wurde 2001 in den USA gegründet und ist mittlerweile in 21 Staaten weltweit vertreten. Unter dem Motto „Abfall abschaffen“ führt Terracycle in Kooperation mit Unternehmen, Händlern und Städten Müllsammelaktionen durch, um den vormals wertlosen Gegenständen anschließen neues Leben einzuhauchen. Gründer und Geschäftsführer Tom Szaky wird vom Magazin Forbes in der Impact-30-Liste genannt, welche die wichtigsten Unternehmensgründer nennt, die weltweit mit den dringendsten Problemen ringen. StartGreen: Lieber Tom, was hat dich dazu bewegt Terracycle zu gründen? Tom Szaky: Die Idee kam mir als ich das Müllproblem genauer betrachtete: Jedes Objekt in der Welt wird irgendwann zu Müll

If you’re stuck on the single serve packs but have a lingering guilty feeling about all that waste, rest easy knowing that GU will pay for Terracycle to recycle all that packaging for you. Just throw them in a box when you get home until there’s enough worth shipping, then head to their website to get a shipping label.

One of my favorite discoveries in this fascinating world of green innovation is the company Terracycle. Simply put, founder and Princeton-dropout Tom Szaky recycles the unrecyclable. You can participate by signing up for different recycling collection programs, collecting your waste, and then shipping it back to Terracycle.